Waste fluids, sometimes referred to as “produced water”, “production fluid” and “wastewater”, are commonly produced or recovered during hydrocarbon drilling, production or related operations (e.g. transportation, storage, etc.). These fluids may arise, for example, during well stimulation, acid flow back, initial well flow back, completions, acid mine drainage, pipeline maintenance or at another time during operations, and are referred to herein and in the appended claims as “produced water”.
There is often a need to dispose of produced water, posing operational challenges in the oil and gas industry. Currently, produced water must be managed at the surface for processing, treatment and/or hauling to designated storage locations. These procedures are often expensive, time-consuming and complicated, expending valuable resources that could otherwise be directed to the primary mission of drilling, production or other operations.
It should be understood that the above-described discussion is provided for illustrative purposes only and is not intended to limit the scope or subject matter of this disclosure, the appended claims or the claims of any related patent application or patent. Thus, none of the appended claims or claims of any related patent application or patent should be limited by the above discussion or required to address, include or exclude the above-cited examples, features and/or disadvantages merely because of their mention above.
Accordingly, there exists a need for improved systems, apparatus and methods for disposing of produced water having one or more of the attributes, capabilities or features described below or in the subsequent sections of this disclosure; uses existing equipment or requires minimal retrofitting of existing equipment; eliminates or lessens the need for treatment of the produced water; eliminates or lessens the need for implementing flowback controls; solidifies the produced water; results in cement that can be used in subterranean well cementing, construction projects or other applications; results in cement placed in existing underground voids; is useful to seal abandoned coal mines that may be releasing fines to the environment; is cost-effective; is time efficient; is reliable; is easy to implement.